# -1 owned a verb!

Richard Godard (rgodard@divsun.unige.ch)
Fri, 22 Mar 1996 13:35:47 PST

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    At 15:08 3/22/96, Pavel Curtis wrote:
    >Seth I. Rich writes:
    >> I have no clue how it happened, but we ended up with a verb owned by #-1.
    >
    >I've tracked this down; it's renumber()'s fault.
    >
    >When renumber(OLD) is called, it first figures out what new, lower object
    >number it's going to use; call it NEW.  It then runs through the entire
    >database changing everything currently owned by OLD to be owned by NEW instead.
    >*Also*, it changes everything currently owned by NEW to be owned by #-1.  I
    >think my reasoning here had to do with not wanting OLD to silently `inherit' a
    >bunch of stuff that used to be owned by the late lamented NEW (now invalid).
    >
    >It's clear that this is not intuitive, or even consistent (since nothing else
    >can set an owner to #-1), but maybe the reasoning behind is worth saving in
    >*some* form.  Ideas?  It could, for example, switch the currently owned by NEW
    >things to be owned by the now-invalid OLD...
    >
    >        Pavel

    Ok, call me paranoid but... a bunch of verbs assume that caller_perms() ==
    $nothing being a server call and do a set task_perms(player)...

    So having some verb owned by #-1 might introduce some security holes...

    Just my 0.02 ZAp...

    The Computer is your Friend. Keep your laser handy. Trust no one.

    Jan-U-SSS-1

    ---
    "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
        -- Bill Gates, 1981